Important reminder: the actual syllabus and course materials is to be found in Moodle: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=9678

1) Enlightenment, Modernity and the rise of historical consciousness

a. I. Kant: "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784)
b. M. Foucault: What is Enlightenment? (1983) [Foucault Reader, pp. 32-50]

Further Readings:
Schmidt, J. (1989). The Question of Enlightenment: Kant, Mendelssohn, and the Mittwochsgesellschaft. Journal of the History of Ideas,50(2), 269-291. doi:10.2307/2709735
Schmidt, J. (2011). Misunderstanding the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’: Venturi, Habermas, and Foucault, History of European Ideas, 37:1,43-52,DOI: 10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2010.08.002
J. Habermas: Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Lecture 1.

2) The Discovery of inter-subjectivity

Required readings: G. W. F. Hegel, Master and Servitude [Phenomenology of Spirit, pp. 108-116]
Further readings: A. Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, pp. 3-30.

3) The intersubjectivity and recognition of underprivileged subjects

a. J.-P. Sartre, Reflections on the Jewish Question, pgs. 7-54.
b. F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, chpt. 5, p. 109-140.

4) From male-centered reflections of subjectivity to plurality of (feminist) perspectives

S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Introduction and the chapter on Myths, pgs. 13-28; 159-211; 260-269.

Further readings. S. de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, chapter "Ambiguity and Freedom", pgs. 1-34.

5) Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Language

a. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus

b. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

6) Existentialism

a. Ortega y Gasset, Man has no nature

b. Martin Heidegger, What is Metaphysics?

c. J.-P. Sartre, Existentialism is Humanism

7) Freedom, truth and politics

H. Arendt, a. Truth and Politics; b. What is Freedom

8) Moral responsibility under conditions of modernity

H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem

9) Emancipation and subjugation

M. Foucault, We Other Victorians; The Repressive Hypothesis

Assessment Students are required to (1) regularly read texts in advance and participate in class discussions. (2) Write three brief summary-papers or let us call them mini commentaries on given texts during the semester (up to 1000 words). They are assessed strictly on passed/failed basis. (3) Each week one student will summarize the content of the class-discussion from the previous week. Who presents a summary in class has the advantage of writing two mini commentaries only.